Privacy’’ in Semantic Networks on Chinese Social Media ...eyuan.people.uic.edu/Research_files/JoC_PrivacyNetworks.pdf · E. J. Yuan et al. Privacy in Semantic Networks on Sina

Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

‘‘Privacy’’ in Semantic Networks on ChineseSocial Media: The Case of Sina WeiboElaine J. Yuan, Miao Feng, & James A. Danowski

Communication Department, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607, USA

Unprecedented social and technological developments call into question the meanings andboundaries of privacy in contemporary China. This study examines the discourse of privacyon Sina Weibo, the country’s largest social medium, by performing a semantic networkanalysis of 18,000 postings containing the word ‘‘ (privacy).’’ The cluster analysisidentifies 11 distinct yet organically related concept clusters, each representing a uniquedimension of meaning of the complex concept. The interpretation of the findings is situatedin the discussion of the rapidly evolving private realm in relation to emerging new contexts ofthe public realm. Privacy, justified for both its instrumental functions and intrinsic values,both reflects and constitutes new forms of sociality on the sociotechno space of Weibo.

doi:10.1111/jcom.12058

Privacy has become one of the most vehemently contested contemporary socialissues, thanks to revolutionary developments in digital networking and mobilecommunication technologies. Both popular and scholarly discourses are imbuedwith uneasiness over ubiquitous public surveillance and information appropriation.However, concerns over privacy are not reducible to relatively simple needs forinformation control. Technological developments, in fact, have renewed the materialconditions that enable emerging practices and shifting notions of privacy.

Conceptions of privacy are rooted in broad social practices at the personal, socio-cultural, and political levels (Solove, 2002; Westin, 1967, 2003). More importantly,the normative dimensions of privacy conceptions intersect with basic epistemologicaland moral concepts such as the nature and forms of human existence, the essenceof political reality, and the relative importance of the individual versus the collective(Capurro, 2005; Ess, 2005). However, mainstream scholarly discourse on privacytends to privilege liberal individualistic understandings of these fundamental issuessince the conventional concept of privacy has evolved within the sociopolitical valuesof Western democracies. The evocation of the right to privacy represents a com-mitment to limited government powers in the interest of individual autonomy and

Corresponding author: Elaine J. Yuan; e-mail: [email protected]

Journal of Communication (2013) © 2013 International Communication Association 1

Privacy in Semantic Networks on Sina Weibo E. J. Yuan et al.

liberty at the sociopolitical level. Grounded on this broad sociopolitical framework,privacy is a means for an individual to achieve the ultimate end of self-realizationin the private realm (Altman, 1975; Margulis, 2003a, 2003b; Rawlins, 1998; Regan,1995; Westin, 1967, 2003).

Consequently, mainstream privacy research tends to be value-driven, making itsassessments of and arguments for privacy issues from an individualistic standpointin the modern liberal sense (Kasper, 2005). There are two major caveats to thisconceptualization of privacy. First, the focus on the normative dimension of privacypropels researchers to seek the essence of privacy in abstraction, to debate a prioriconditions for privacy, and to search for rigid conceptual boundaries at the expenseof rich and embedded privacy practices (Solove, 2002). Second, the emphasis on thesepremises effectively locks the notion of privacy into the particular context of liberalindividualism and makes it difficult to understand privacy practices in sociopoliticalenvironments that did not arise within modern liberal democratic traditions.

This study examines privacy discourses and practices on Sina Weibo, one ofthe leading social media platforms in China. In this study, Sina Weibo serves asa sociotechno context situated in a Chinese society that is rapidly evolving underpressures from its growing market economy and associated deepening culturaltransformations. Weibo also provides the texts that constitute public and privatediscourses on privacy for this study. By tapping into the rich corpora on SinaWeibo, this study explores the meaning of privacy through related terminologicaldimensions of particular privacy practices, especially instances of disruption andconflict embedded in Weibo discourses. Instead of moralizing under an overarchingessentialist concept of privacy, this study purports to decouple privacy discoursesand practices from the prevalent liberal individualist premises, and to understandthe issue in relation to China’s own social and historical developments.

Changing private life in Chinese societyAlthough a desire for privacy appears to be universal, the meaning and the socialcustoms surrounding it differ notably across sociohistorical contexts (Gumpert& Drucker, 1998; Moore, 1984; Zarrow, 2002). A society’s characterization ofprivacy says much about both its theoretical and normative understandings of suchfundamental issues as the nature of human consciousness and social organization(Cohen, 2001).

The problem of privacy is often subsumed within a larger discussion of therelationship of the private realm to the public realm (Gumpert & Drucker, 1998).However, private life is a historical reality that different societies have construedin different ways (Zarrow, 2002). Cultural and political traditions and realities thatdelineate private space and conduct serve as the material conditions of privacy. Asthese conditions come under pressure, the theoretical and normative roots of privacyshift accordingly.

There is not a single Chinese word encompassing all the meanings attached tothe English word ‘‘privacy.’’ In English, ‘‘privacy’’ contains several layers of meaning

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E. J. Yuan et al. Privacy in Semantic Networks on Sina Weibo

ranging from inner, personal, and family life separate from the public, to individualrights and related concepts (Zarrow, 2002). The indigenous concept of si inChinese, representing the ideas of the personal and the self, has had to go througha long ideational evolution to shed its negative connotations and acquire legitimacyas a private realm in a collective society. This adaptation of moral values with regardto the private realm in Chinese society reflects the unusual political conditions andincreasing tempo of commercialization since the end of the 16th century (Zarrow,2002).

Recent concerns about privacy have arisen in the broad context of contemporaryChina’s rapid transition to a market economy, the growing legitimization of theindividual in social practices, and the consequential individualization of Chinesesociety through structural changes of social relations (Yan, 2009). The individual,whose sociopolitical identity had previously always been prescribed by the socialcollectives he or she was embedded in, has emerged as an independent social categoryon sociopolitical grounds. The lives of Chinese individuals have been increasinglyoriented toward personal well-being and improvement, shedding age-old moralpreference of collective welfare (Yan, 2009). The unprecedented changes in socialconditions have created new opportunities for ordinary people to imagine and topractice the idea of the private self.

It is particularly significant to note the rise of an individual in relation to thefamily and kinship, the two categories that have long defined the Chinese individual.No longer expected to simply perpetuate the family lineage, the individual incontemporary Chinese society instead pursues his/her interests through the workingsof both the family and ‘‘practical kinship.’’ Consequently, the personal network andemotional attachments to kin and friends have become increasingly important indefining individual identity (Yan, 2009).

Similarly, recent decades have also witnessed a reorientation of the thinkingabout the nature of gong, as in the ideas of the public, the communal, andpublic space. The rising individuals in Chinese society have been struggling torenew their relationship with new forms of socioeconomic institutions, and moreimportantly, the party-state, which have played a key role in directing the processof individualization. The state-led socioeconomic reforms and policies profoundlyaffect and effectively manage the interplay among the individual, social institutions,and the market. For this reason, the changing relationship between the individualand the party-state in China does not mean a categorical shift toward the sameindividual–society relationship as in Western Europe (Yan, 2010). If the pursuit ofindividual interest in China drives an increasing awareness of consumer rights andthe development of rights-assertion activities which in turn produce rights-bearingcitizens who promote the rule of law in a civil society, the terms through which thisis realized must necessarily adapt to or arise within the context of the country’s ownsociopolitical history and reality.

Against this backdrop, this study aims to explore the meanings of privacypractices and discourses in contemporary Chinese society. Privacy is a dialectical



concept conditioned by people’s expectations and experiences as private selves inrelation to other social players. It is a dynamic process that undergoes constantnegotiation and reorientation as a result of the shifting boundaries between privateand public realms in a changing society. Hence, we first ask the following twoquestions: One, how is privacy discussed and practiced in various private and publicrealms in Chinese society? (RQ1) Two, what kinds of relationships between theprivate and public realms do the discourses and practices of privacy reflect or reveal?(RQ2)

Sina Weibo as a sociotechno context and discursive textsThe sense of privacy originates in our interactions with and within the social spatialenvironment (Cohen, 2001; Kisselburgh, 2008). Recent developments of informationand communication technologies (ICTs) such as network computing and mobilecommunication have presented a serious challenge to the physical, psychological,and social mechanisms we draw on for regulating privacy (Kasper, 2005; Solove,2002). These technologies have reconfigured the media of human communication,the means of information access and storage, as well as the conditions, constraints,and expectations of social interaction. Consequently, the structure and logic fororganizing understandings of privacy have changed accordingly (Kisselburgh, 2008;Rawlins, 1998).

Moreover, ICTs do not simply provide technical platforms through which wereflect, enact, or debate privacy concerns. Instead, they are a part of the circumstancewithin which we formulate and understand these concerns (Palen & Dourish, 2003).ICTs constitute sociotechno spaces intersecting both physical and virtual worlds,each intersection instantiating a space of potentially conflicting behavioral standards.Our concerns about privacy reveal our constant efforts to manage the boundariesbetween different realms of action and degrees of disclosure within these sociotechnospaces (Palen & Dourish, 2003). In such environments, our thoughts and behaviorsare understood through both the guidance of existing and emerging social normsand the means of informational representations enabled by the specific media.

The venue of such a sociotechno space for this study is Sina Weibo, one of thelargest social media platforms in China. Sina Weibo is a Twitter-like microbloggingservice provided by the Sina corporation. Launched in August 2009, Sina Weiboquickly became the most popular social media site in the country. It is reported tohave over 300 million registered users and generate about 100 million posts per day.The speed and scale at which information spreads on the Sina Weibo network hasmade it far less subject to control and censorship by the authorities and a preferredplatform for information dissemination and social networking. In many ways, SinaWeibo is capable of carrying the conversations of an increasingly vocal public in realtime (Magistad, 2012; Qu, Huang, Zhang, & Zhang, 2011; Yan, 2011).

Privacy concerns are driven by a combination of technical and social factors.Social media exemplifies the sociotechno space where traditional privacy notions andnew privacy practices are contested. For this reason, we ask ‘‘What roles do social



media such as Sina Weibo play for online users’ privacy practices in contemporaryChinese society?’’ (RQ3).

Methods

Instead of trying to summarize and essentialize for an overarching privacy concept,this study takes a pragmatic approach to privacy by identifying and analyzing a setof related dimensions of privacy practices. Solove (2002) argues that any conceptionof privacy must be responsive to social reality since privacy is, after all, an aspect ofconcrete social practices contingent on context. Such practices are constituted in theways in which we employ the word ‘‘privacy’’ in everyday life and the things we referto when we speak of ‘‘privacy.’’

Privacy in this study is examined as a web of interconnected specific practices ordisruptions of such practices embedded in discourses. The task of conceptualizingprivacy, therefore, becomes mapping the typography of the discursive network. Theemerging dimensions of the network are not categories with fixed boundaries butareas where we identify unique patterns in detail. As Solove suggested, ‘‘we shouldact as cartographers, mapping out the terrain of privacy by examining specificproblematic situations rather than trying to fit each situation into a rigid predefinedcategory’’ (Solove, 2002, p. 1126).

For this reason, this study employs semantic network analysis to pursue themeaning of privacy on Sina Weibo. Semantic network analysis has its origin incognitive science literature, which argued that there exists a structural meaningsystem in human memory (Collins & Quillian, 1972). Along this line of thought,semantic network theorists have argued that the frequency, co-occurrence, anddistances among words and concepts allow researchers to explore meaning embeddedin the text (Danowski, 1993; Doerfel, 1998). For instance, Chung and Park (2010)applied semantic network analysis to presidential speeches to understand both therhetorical styles and the characteristics of presidential administrations’ political andsocial viewpoints. Zywica and Danowski (2008) analyzed the semantic networksof open-ended survey responses of two Facebook user groups and found differentmeanings of their offline and online popularity.

While there have been different methods to conceptualize network ties (traditionalcontent analysis, shared perception, and word association) in existing semanticnetwork analysis research (Doerfel, 1998), this study employs the word association(concept co-occurrence) method, which maps the relationship among words byindexing the pairs of concepts. Extending beyond the standard content analysisof texts and frequencies of concepts, such a semantic network analysis revealsthe manifest meaning structure of the text and indirectly represents the collectivecognitive structure among the creators of the text (Danowski, 1993).

The semantic network generated in this study identifies major privacy-relatedconcepts in the text data as nodes linked together by the frequencies with which eachconcept co-occurs with the other concepts. Network clusters that emerge organically



from the large network are further identified to illustrate the important dimensions ofprivacy discourse on Weibo. These clusters are further explained with more detailedexamples of the postings following the explication of conventional discourse analysisprinciples.

The data for this study were gathered in July 2012 by doing a keyword (‘‘ ’’privacy) search on weibo.com. The resultant 18,000 items were randomly selectedamong all the postings generated by Sina Weibo users from March to June 2012. Priorto analysis, we scrubbed the raw corpus of irrelevant information such as user ID andtextual ‘‘noise’’ such as stray punctuation, symbols, and affirmative utterances ( ,

, , etc.). For word tokenization, we used ICTCLAS (http://ictclas.org/, ICTCLAS,2012) to select all the nouns, verbs, and adjectives from the cleaned corpus (ICTCLAS,2012).

In the first step, we performed both a conceptual and a relational analysis onthe text in order to identify privacy-related concepts and measure the frequen-cies of the co-occurrences of these concepts. The analyses were conducted usingWORDij 3.0 (Danowski, 1993, 2010), a computer program (http:/wordij.net) thatcombines multiple analytic techniques including content analysis, computationallinguistics, and network visualization. Wordij 3.0 has been used in many researchprojects published in leading journals to perform text mining (e.g., Peng, Zhang,Zhong, & Zhu, 2012) and semantic network analysis (e.g., Smith & Parrott, 2012;Zywica & Danowski, 2008). We used WORDij’s WordLink program to identifyconcepts that co-occur with the word ‘‘privacy ( )’’ more than 10 times inthe corpus. Co-occurrence of a word pair is defined as the two terms appearingtogether within a three-word window (see Danowski, 1993). A semantic networkthen was generated by linking these words based on the frequencies of their co-occurrences. Altogether 385 nodes (words/terms/concepts) comprise the resultantnetwork.

Next, we loaded the network data, consisting of a list of concept node pairsand their aggregated frequencies, into NodeXL (https://nodexl.codeplex.com/ Smithet al., 2010), an open-source template for Excel. A cluster analysis was performedin NodeXL using the Clauset-Newman-Moore algorithm (Clauset, Newman, &Moore, 2004). A cluster is a densely connected subset of nodes more related to oneanother than to other nodes in the network. A semantic cluster may reflect a uniquedimension of meaning embedded in the concept of privacy. To get an optimal result,we excluded the dominant keyword ‘‘privacy ( )’’ from the cluster analysis andvisualization.

Finally, we used Gephi (https://gephi.org/) to visualize the full network and theclusters. The sizes of the nodes are proportionate to the percentages of the nodeslinked to them. The distance between words on the cluster graphs reflects strength ofrelationship between these concepts, that is, the frequency with which the word pairis linked. Concepts with stronger relationships appear closer together, and conceptswith weaker relationships are further apart.



Figure 1 The semantic network of privacy on Sina Weibo.

Results

Figure 1 displays the full semantic network from the original corpus in Chinesecharacters. Working with Chinese characters was one of the biggest challenges tothis project. A meaningful interpretation of the findings depends on the successfultokenization of the Chinese corpus and network construction. Therefore, we keptChinese characters in our presentation of the concepts and terms whenever possible.Altogether, 11 clusters emerge from the cluster analysis.

Among these groups, Group 1 has the largest number of words (see Figure 2).The overwhelming majority of the words in Group 1 describe various social rolessuch as mom ( ), wife ( ), superiors ( ), and social relationships such asfriends ( ) and colleagues ( ). The rest include organically related concepts that



Figure 2 Group 1 the personal sphere of privacy on Sina Weibo.

describe social settings (family , marriage ), awareness, emotions, and actionswith regard to privacy (respect , lose , disgusting , villains ), as well asassociated themes and subject content (hopes , happiness , growing up ).This group essentially depicts a personal realm for the notion of privacy.

Group 2, the second largest network, is distinct with words from the media andtechnological realm (see Figure 3). The nodes such as user ( ), information ( ),software ( ), cell phone ( ), network ( ), and download ( ) carry with them



Figure 3 Group 2 the technological and media sphere of privacy on Sina Weibo.

the informational dimension of the privacy concept. Obviously, privacy concernsare accentuated by the ease of information dissemination enabled by digital mediatechnologies. There is also a journalism-media aspect of the concept represented insuch words as the media ( ), news ( ), report ( ), and reporters ( ).

Words making up Groups 3 and 4 seem to describe socioprofessional environ-ments of the privacy concept (see Figure 4). We can see words such as student ( )and teacher ( ) paired with words such as classroom ( ) and dormitory ( ).Boss ( ) and customers ( ) appear with office ( ). Civil servants ( ) andofficials ( ) are close to government ( ). Venereal disease ( ) is linked withhospitals ( ). We also noticed that privacy is being discussed in terms of publicpolicy, as evident in such words as the police ( ) and society ( ), as well asstandards ( ), regulations ( ), rules ( ), and laws ( ). The thematic wordsof this socioprofessional sphere seem to be infringement ( ), survival ( ), safety( ), and dignity ( ).

Group 5 sheds light on a specific instance of privacy concerns, namely, theease of shooting ( , ), displaying ( ), forwarding ( ), and deleting( ) photos ( ) and records ( ) (see Figure 5). In addition, words in thecluster such as strangers ( ), familiar ( ), and city ( ) depict the larger



Figure 4 Groups 3 and 4 the socioprofessional sphere of privacy on Sina Weibo.

context of technological concerns. This network, therefore, spans both the social andtechnological realms.

Groups 6 and 7 are topic areas concerned with public policies. While theformer includes the police ( ), police stations ( ), fines ( ), and detention( ), the latter touches on larger political concepts such as the state ( ), humanrights ( ), the people ( ), and top secrets ( ). These two clusters representthe public and political spheres in which privacy is experienced and understood(see Figure 6).



Figure 5 Group 5 the technological sphere of privacy on Sina Weibo.

The rest of the groups are much smaller in size and more homogeneous in nodecomposition. Group 8 seems to concern family affairs ( ) and related emotions(fear ) and norms (considerate ) (see Figure 7). Group 9 is apparently derivedfrom public responses on Sina Weibo to the story of one or more fame-hungry ( ),scandalous ( ), entertainment program ( ) actress(es) ( ) (see also Figure 7).Group 10, with only three nodes (the room , glass , intimacy ), is bestcharacterized as sociospatial. Finally, the two nodes in Group 11 (angry and sad

) denote the socioemotional dimension.These mutually distinct yet organically related semantic network clusters effec-

tively identify several important dimensions of meaning with regard to the conceptof privacy as reflected in Sina Weibo postings. These dimensions delineate thediverse social contexts wherein the private self interacts with other key aspects ofcontemporary Chinese society. Privacy concerns are most immediate and thus mostpalpable where an individual conducts his/her daily life in close company with his/herfamily and friends. Similar tensions naturally extend to professional environments asprofessional relations often entangle with personal relations in the Chinese context.And finally, there are political discourses fermenting via the trope of privacy onSina Weibo. Such political discourses reflect how Chinese individuals envision theirrelationship with the party-state. Together these dimensions are constitutive of anorganic lifeworld embodying a logic of understanding that does not fit Westernnormative individualist frameworks and conceptions. Rather these discourses andpractices provide concrete contexts and bases from which to evaluate the purposesprivacy serves and construct its normative ends in light of Chinese society’s own



Figure 6 Groups 6 and 7 the public policy sphere of privacy on Sina Weibo.

traditions and realities. Moreover, the cluster analysis characterizes Sina Weibo as asocio techno space where the media and technology reformulate and accentuate theconcerns and conflicts of the lifeworld.

Discussion

The liberal individualistic perspective prescribes privacy as a means for an individualto achieve the ultimate end of self-identity and self-realization. Social relationships,on the other hand, are deemed either voluntary or barriers to individual independence(Altman, 1975; Margulis, 2003a; Rawlins, 1998; Westin, 1967). In the Sina Weibocorpus, the word that co-occurs most frequently with ‘‘privacy ( )’’ is ‘‘theindividual ( ).’’ Respect for individual privacy or the lack of individual privacy arethe two most common themes on Sina Weibo. Indeed, ‘‘privacy’’ seems to indicatean acute sense of individuality. However, this new sense of individuality still engagesin constant dialogue with the traditional Chinese self embedded in a network of



Figure 7 Groups 8 and 9 the social sphere of privacy on Sina Weibo.

relations and situations. As evident on Weibo, the notion of ‘‘individual privacy( )’’ frequently arises in personal relationships, as in the following example:

@ Please respect our individual privacy, if you dare to eavesdrop on my phone conversationsagain, I’ll never tell you who called and what it’s about again . . .

In fact, the word privacy takes on diverse and particular meanings when it istalked about in relation to parents, siblings, friends, significant others, colleagues,and schoolmates. In the following posting, for instance, privacy is understood assecrets keeping one from getting close to her romantic partner.

@ You don’t let me touch your cell phone saying that I need to respect your privacy. I don’tunderstand: if you don’t have anything to hide from me why can’t I take a look at it? Youcan inspect my phone however you want because I love you so much that everything I haveis open to you. The fact that you keep me away from your phone only makes me feel thatyou are keeping secrets from me . . .

In a sense, the concept of privacy provides an opportunity for people to thinkabout their personal relationships and make sense of the evolving social norms thatregulate these relationships:

@ A personal space is needed even when with the best friend. Privacy not only won’t estrangefeelings but also allow us to establish the sense of safety and trust.

@ Violate your privacy, meddle with your friends, . . . make you so tired, I feel sorry about it.But don’t you think love is selfish? . . . Don’t you think we need to sacrifice for love, don’tmake me feel that your schoolmates and friends are more important than me! I do care!

Moreover, concerns about privacy are often discussed in relation to social rolesand the obligations prescribed to those roles. For instance, a mother’s responsibility



trumps one’s sense of privacy over her body, an idea forcefully expressed in thefollowing posting:

@ The so-called privacy of a female’s body is non-sense: when feeding a baby, a woman’sbreast is not just for display but a practical tool!

Finally, privacy is very much a gendered topic on Sina Weibo. The following isone of many different versions of a typical friendly reminder to women who aresusceptible to the pitfalls of unwise relational moves, of which privacy is one:

@ It’s silly for a woman to . . . 1. . . . , 2. . . . , 3. . . . , 4. pry on a man’s privacy like a spy.

But apparently men are equally subject to judgment when it comes to privacy:

@ So fragile as to reply on the privacy settings to shut off comments, are you still a man?

These examples demonstrate that, rather than serving the purpose of one’sself-contained, controlled, and chosen identity, ideas of privacy on Sina Weibo areoften expressed in contexts that are relational, role-oriented, and gendered. Privacyon Sina Weibo draws upon as many obligations as rights, as much emotion asinformation, as much role-defining and relationship-maintenance as interpersonalborder control. In a sense, the notion of privacy provides a conceptual vehicle forpeople to contemplate relational norms.

@ If a guy would: 1. Tell you his QQ [a popular Chinese IM platform] password. 2. Tell you hisbankcard password . . . 4. Allow you to check his cell phone anytime . . . Then, marry him!

@ Many people show their understanding and sympathy for you only to pryon your privacy. This common sense should be remembered all the time to protect yourself.

As a contested conceptual vehicle, the notion of privacy also often appears sideby side with both new liberal ideas and traditional understandings. The following isa posting in immediate response to the above marriage call:

@ Everyone needs freedom, privacy, character and temperament. Point 1, 2, 4, . . . are ratherperverse . . .

The notion of privacy is also rich enough to characterize the general socialatmosphere. The following laments the loss of strong emotional interpersonalattachments to the ills of urbanity:

@ This city is big enough to tolerate all your eccentricities and habits. People are busy withtheir own lives, taking indifference as a respect of privacy. People always say it’s fine nothingserious alright OK, So do you. People come to you to confide their grievances, and leave youto go on with their lives afterwards, you don’t care much about it either because you onlypretend to listen. The world is so big but we are so lonely!

As China is well on its way to become a more open, modern, and highly mobilesociety, there have been rising concerns about how the long tradition of personal trustadapts to increasing interaction among unrelated individuals. The semantic analysisresults seem to show that beyond entangled webs of personal relationships, privacy



still belongs to more general and abstract ‘‘others’’ ( , , , ). Betweenunderstandings of privacy in the contexts of particular personal relationships anda general sense of privacy for all, Sina Weibo users relate a wide range of differentactions to privacy, most with negative connotations: see ( ), spread ( ), touch on( ), discuss ( ), leak ( ), disclose ( ), share ( ), gossip ( ), infringe( ), invade ( ), dig ( ), pry ( ), expose ( , ), publicize ( ), lose( ). Some are positive: care ( ), respect ( ), preserve ( ), protect ( ),guarantee ( ); the rest are neutral such as self-express ( ), or new such as forward( ) (a novel ICT-enabled action). These actions are an impressive display of notonly the broad set of connotations the concept of privacy entails but also the nuancedunderstandings of privacy embedded in an expanded scope of social relationships

Existing scholarship on privacy in the Chinese context tends to argue for therationale of privacy protection as an instrumental good instead of an intrinsicvalue (Lu, 2005). Evidence from Sina Weibo shows that privacy is deemed both anintrinsic imperative and an instrumental necessity. On one hand, it is related to suchfundamental moral values as dignity and respect. On the other, it is also part of thematerial condition for safety:

@ An important criterion to judge if one is a person of virtue or vice is to see if she is interestedin other peoples’ privacy . . .

@ Three kinds of wealth in one’s life: 1. health, 2. privacy, 3. freedom.

@ It’s common on Weibo that proud parents use their children’s pictures as their profilepictures, mention their children’s names, and the names of their kindergartens and schools,expose their neighborhoods in pictures . . . Hope parents realize these are all children’simportant privacy, think twice before you post on Weibo.

Privacy is deemed a human right in liberal individualistic frameworks, which arepremised on the primacy of the private individual and its separation from, or evenopposition to, the state and other forms of social power. Emphasizing the choiceand control of the autonomous individual, this perspective sees important threats toprivacy arising from organization–individual relationships (Margulis, 2003b; Regan,1995; Westin, 2003).

As new types of social interaction, such as that of citizen–government,employee–employer, and consumer–business, become increasingly important forsocial integration in contemporary Chinese society, social relations in the contexts ofvarious social institutions have become ever more complex. The dynamics of socialinteraction and emerging norms are often reflected in privacy concerns:

@ Marriage and family are beyond the authority of an employer. An employer’s interference isan immoral and illegal infringement of employees’ privacy.

@ XX hospital ignores patients’ right to privacy by leaving patients’ medical records open forunauthorized access by anyone . . .



A modern sense of distinction between the private ( ) and the public ( ) seemsto arise when people pay more attention to the boundaries between impersonalprofessional environments and the personal realm. Nevertheless, such a distinctionis still nebulous and subject to discussion, as exemplified in the following muchreposted posting:

[Ten pieces of wisdom at the workplace] @1.Don’t be antisocial, have harmoniousinterpersonal relations. 2. Don’t confide to colleagues. 3. Don’t handle personal thingsduring business hours. 4. Don’t gossip about colleagues . . . 5. Don’t reveal privacy atwill . . . .

Moreover, there is ample evidence on Weibo that people have started to talk aboutprivacy as a kind of right ( ). However, the use of the word ‘‘rights’’ does notnecessarily indicate a pure legal political notion. The reference to rights is often a formof emphasis when it is applied to networks of relations for Chinese social media users.

@ Do I have the right to privacy or not! I can’t eviscerate myself to show you everything evenin the name of the greatest love!

In addition, the right to privacy is often understood and grounded on particularpersonal experience, for instance, as a consumer in the market, and the belief thatthe government has the responsibility to make public policies protecting this right.

@ Car insurance is expiring. Have been bombarded by text messages and phone calls frommany insurance companies for almost a month. I don’t check such texts or answer such callsanymore. There have been numerous public discussions about personal information beingprofited from and appropriated. When will the government issue laws to protect citizens’basic right to privacy. My request is not too demanding, living on this land, I need to feel asense of safety.

Nevertheless, liberal democratic ideas are still an important part of the politicaldiscourse on privacy coming from an increasingly individualized, urban, young, andrelatively better educated ‘‘middle social stratum’’ (CNNIC, 2010; Huang, 2010) thatpopulates Chinese social media. This middle stratum shows much enthusiasm infollowing these democratic ideas to reimagine and reorganize political life for thepublic good.

@ . . . In the U.S., it is ok to keep a secret of one’s property but that of government officialsmust be open to public scrutiny; In the U.S., the right to privacy is guaranteed for everyonebut government officials.

@ Comment No. 2 on <the pending regulation that requires real name for user registrationon online forums and Weibo>: I support real name registration for the purpose of crackingdown on online rumors and crimes, but the premises for that are 1, the ability of websites toprotect users’ privacy 2, if the government can tolerate reasonable criticisms 3, if onlinecriticisms and disclosures are protected from retribution. Under the current circumstances,these premises are nonexistent.

Finally, social media such as Sina Weibo provide a new sociotechno space whereextended debates and discussions of privacy happen. This space is understood and



accepted as a sociotechno artifact that takes place simultaneously with other newthings that have brought about changes in life:

@ . . . mortgages take away the future, marriages take away passion, the market takes away thebottom line, Weibo takes away privacy.

It is an open technological platform turned into a private personal space by some:

@ I don’t’ have any schoolmates on Weibo, all my grievances are to myself, therefore I havemy privacy.

@ I’m lucky that no one from my family knows my Weibo ID. . . . It would be really awkwardif they snoop on my privacy. Really awkward.

These two examples seem to instantiate the notion of ‘‘public privacy,’’ whichoccurs when the individual expresses herself openly in an anonymous environment,in this case, an anonymous virtual environment (Westin, 1967, pp. 31–32). However,there may be different understandings of the character of such an environment. Whilesome mean to make public aspects of their private lives, others deem such a virtualenvironment an extension of the private realm.

Apparently new ICTs have led to the steady decline of clearly situated actionsand understandings (Palen & Dourish, 2003). The nature and function of Weibo as asociotechno space becomes implicated in the debates over what constitutes ‘‘private’’and what ‘‘public’’ means at a time when the two axes of the lifeworld are undergoingradical transformation.

@ Weibo is the easiest way to pry on privacy.

@ . . . things that are made public on Weibo cannot be called privacy, can only be calledpersonal things . . .

Capurro (2005, p. 40) argues that when ‘‘our being-in-the-world-with-othersis basically a being-in-the-networked-world,’’ the very nature of autonomy andindividuality seems to evolve into, paradoxically, a networked individuality. Suchconfusions voiced on Sina Weibo seem to reflect the complexity the Chineseindividuals face in response to both the cultural self as a network of relations andnew technologically-enabled networks of connections.

Conclusion

Contemporary China is in a period of rapid social transformation. An expandingmarket economy, the growing importance of new forms of sociality, and an emergingsense of individuality, along with the fast development of ICTs, are all part of thecontemporary environment that is cultivating and reframing people’s understandingsof privacy. The discourse on privacy on Chinese social media not only reflects butalso constitutes changes in people’s lifeworlds.



Demographically distinct from the broader population, typical Chinese Internetusers—urban, young, and relatively better educated—have experienced improvedsocial and spatial mobility that has pushed them to the forefront of the individualiza-tion process in Chinese society (Yan, 2009). At the same time, trends in the marketeconomy provide contexts for imagining and practicing new types of social relations,such as citizen–government and consumer–business relationships.

The notion of privacy has penetrated deeply into the personal realm in Chinesesocial media. On one hand, privacy has been integrated into practices and norms ofsocial roles and personal relationships. The choice between disclosure and privacyreveals expectations and strengthens or weakens trust in personal relationships. Onthe other hand, the notion of privacy brings about ideas and practices that stir changesin the personal realm. Spouses and friends have to struggle with the heightened senseof individual independence embedded in the concept, as much as women and menhave to face new behavioral stereotypes in the name of privacy. The role-oriented andgendered discourse on privacy reflects the intensified conflicts between rights andobligations, disclosure and distance, dependence and independence in the personaland other closely linked sociocultural realms. Moreover, privacy is understood onSina Weibo for both its intrinsic values and instrumental purposes. The dignity of theself and the safety of the family are the two forces driving the increasing consciousnessof the privacy concept.

More importantly, the sense of the self is experienced in new forms of socialityin emerging new contexts of social and public realms while concerns for privacyembody patterns of social interaction in these new contexts. People express inprivacy concerns their experiences with others in professional settings and in thecontemporary sociospatial environment of heightened mobility. Privacy is embracedas a form of legal rights for consumers in the market. Privacy consciousness alsoapplies to the political arena, both reflecting and affecting power relationships amongthe government, officials, and ordinary citizens.

Whereas the individual’s gain often means the society’s loss in liberal individualis-tic societies (e.g. Gumpert & Drucker, 2001), privacy in the Chinese context involvesa parallel process of reorienting personal relations and activating the public realmfor social integration in a modern sense. In other words, the personal is redefinedin relation to new public contexts, such as professional life, the political arena, andthe impersonal market. This reminds us that privacy and publicness are mutuallyimplicated notions that are historically and contextually defined (Rawlins, 1998).

Discussion of privacy on Sina Weibo reveals growing sensitivity to state surveil-lance and the intrusion of commercial interests. We see emerging public discourseorganized around a free-standing right-to-informational-privacy theme (Westin,2003). The notion of privacy is also seen to be connected with the exercise of respon-sible citizenship. Yet discussion of privacy in the individual-state relationship needsto be situated in the long Chinese political tradition in which the state is bestowedwith both moral and absolute authority while the individual relies on the state forprotection and well-being (Yan, 2009).



Privacy is thus a sweeping term encompassing everything from the quest forpersonal dignity and safety to the growing sense of political participation in contem-porary China. It carries with it fresh perspectives for understanding the relationshipbetween self and others, individual and collectives, private and public, as well asspatial boundaries in broader contemporary Chinese society.

Moreover, the concept of privacy serves as an interpretive device for exploringthe sociopolitical implications of the sociotechno spaces enabled by social mediasuch as Sina Weibo (Rawlins, 1998). Situated in this changing social environment,the sociotechno space of Sina Weibo is not simply a passive conduit for preexistingsocial values. It provides contexts that affect not only the amount of privacy weenjoy, but also the very ways we think about privacy. It offers a venue for privacyto be displayed, practiced, and contested. Indeed, privacy concerns in contemporarysociety are largely attributable to the conflict between the changing communicativeenvironment and the traditional constructions of privacy that predate currenttechnological developments.

Privacy has a normative component that relates to our understanding of funda-mental human nature and political reality (Kasper, 2005; Solove, 2002). In this sense,privacy is not just found but constructed based on how we envision individuality withits practical implication as autonomous participants in modern society and how weunderstand our dependency on larger social collectives that sustain a certain desirablesocial order (Ess, 2005; Reiman, 1976). Such normative construction requires weexamine privacy as aspects of social practices, its role in particular practices, and theends that these practices further, all within the specific context of the sociohistoricaldevelopment of the given society.

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